I loved Penang. I can’t really say why, especially after Malacca left me feeling so bleh, but the whole place just felt like it had a buzz. It was still a tourist trap, or at least George Town was, but in a way it felt like it was a tourist trap on it’s own terms…

Part two of our Malaysian adventures. After a few days in KL we borrowed a car and road-tripped down to Malacca (or Melaka in Malay) for a bit of old-school backpacking (which feels weird when you have a car…).

The hostel was great in a delightfully hostely way (I haven’t spent much time in Asian hostels…) and the city was fun for a bit, if a bit odd. The old-town centre is based around a World Heritage listed Portuguese enclave and the famous Jonker Walk, both of which have morphed into everything that’s bad about tourist traps, and the rest of the city is pretty standard urban sprawl.

In what was becoming par for the course, we ate. I had a few goes at durian (not a fan, much to my girlfriend’s dissapointment) and went on a mission through the outer burbs to find ‘satay celup’ (massive fan, much to my girlfriend’s delight).

It has been a while. First it got a little bit busy on the Overland, and then my old MacBook Pro died a slow and painful death, and it would seem I haven’t posted anything in, well, ages.

With a new computer in hand, and the free-time of the momentarily unemployed off-season guide, it’s time to start working through the backlog. And there’s a rather big backlog…

To start things rolling I have the first of three photo-essays from an Xmas/New Years trip to Malaysia. The main purpose of the trip was the opportunity for my Malaysian girlfriend to ‘present’ me to her family, so it’s fair to say I as a babbling nervous wreck on the flight over. They were lovely, the place was lovely, and once I was over the jitters we descended into a beautiful food haze. I’m sure we did something other than eat, but whatever it was has been drowned from my memory in the clatter of hawker stalls…

Our time in KL was mainly about family so, apart from visits to KLCC and the Batu Caves, we didn’t do too much in the way of touristy stuff. That’ll come in the Malacca and Penang collections!